Octavia E. Butler - Earthseed, Book 1 -… [306]

“I mean he’s like…like a symbol of the past for us to hold on to as we’re pushed into the future. He’s nothing. No substance. But having him there, the latest in a two-and-a-half-century-long line of American Presidents make people feel that the country, the culture that they grew up with is still here—that we’ll get through these bad times and back to normal.” — , Octavia E. Butler - Earthseed, Book 1 -…, 306

Note

A definition delivered as a self-correction — Lauren starts with a simile, dislikes it, and rebuilds it mid-sentence, which lets the abstraction arrive already tested. Donner as “a kind of human banister” and then “He’s nothing. No substance” is a double verdict, contempt softened by the recognition of why people need the fiction. The long dash clause is the real content: comfort as a forward-looking promise of “back to normal” that no one believes and everyone uses.